La Tua Cantante
by lowdergirlversion2.0
Summary: Could you truly forgive the one you love for anything? A tale of two people finding their way through obstacles and past tragedies. AU, but not necessarily all human.
1. Prologue

La Tua Cantante

Prologue

Her mother was singing; a soft humming without words.

Bella didn't know the name of the song, yet it was a very familiar melody and never failed to make the little girl feel warm and safe. Bella listened for a moment - large brown eyes closed and basking in the sun's rays - a brief appearance in an otherwise cloudy day.

All too soon Mr. Sun ducked back behind a large, dark and angry cloud. Bella huffed in a pout, her plump bottom lip sticking out even further, and returned to brushing her doll's hair.

"Looks like a storm's coming in. We'd better get the laundry in before we get rained on," Bella's mother said in a light, lilting voice. "Be a shame for the sheets to get wet after drying outside all day, wouldn't it, my Bella?"

Bella just grinned up at her mother, proudly displaying the gap from losing one of her front teeth the day before. She began gathering up her dolls and teddy bears while her mom worked quickly to fold up the white sheets that had been hanging on the clothesline.

Bella jumped when there was a sudden flash of lightening, followed by a distant rumbling thunder. The wind had picked up, tossing Bella's mahogany curls about her head.

She had turned to run into the house when she heard behind her a terrifying sound - like a deep, ferocious growl.

"It's only thunder," Bella whispered to herself. "It can't hurt you. Just go into the house."

She was frozen though, when her mother's piercing scream followed.

She turned slowly, her wide eyes staring in shock and horror. Her chubby little knees wobbled and she collapsed bonelessly onto the ground.

The screams and growls faded after an endless eternity and suddenly her father was there holding her mother and crying while others ran around frantically - wailing, crying, - 'Oh my God!'

But Bella was aware of none of it. Frozen - eyes staring at what was once a pristine white sheet - crimson rivers now flowing over it.


	2. Chapter One

La Tua Cantante

Chapter One

"Hey, are you okay?"

Bella Swan blinked open her eyes, glancing around the crowded plane.

"What? Oh…yeah - I'm fine," she answered the man sitting beside her. "I guess I just fell asleep."

The middle aged man smiled. "I wish I could fall asleep. I don't do well with flying. You'd think flying across the country 2 to 3 times a week would 'toughen me up' but nope - still nervous."

Bella responded with a small smile and straightened up in her seat. It was a long flight from Tulsa, OK to Seattle and she was starting to feel restless.

"So," her chatty neighbor began, "What brings you to Seattle?"

"Oh…I'm, uh, moving there. Well, not Seattle, but that general area."

The man took a glance around the plane. "Oh, are your parents on this flight, too?"

Facing away from her as he was, he missed her momentary wince. "Ah, no actually. I'm moving by myself."

He sent her a questioning look. She sighed inwardly and dragged forward the story she had prepared for just this reason.

"I'm going to UW in a couple of years - they have a great English Lit program there. In the meantime I'm moving in with my aunt so I can establish residency and get the in-state tuition rate."

"Oh, that's smart. You're fortunate that you have family there."

"Yeah, I am," she replied. _Just about my only family._

……………………………….............................................................................................................

"Bella!"

Bella turned around at the sound of her name, her waist length, thick brown hair twirling out around her. She grinned at the woman making her way towards her through the crowded terminal.

"Aunt Charlie!"

The two women hugged briefly and warmly and then Charlie held Bella out at arms length.

"Hey kiddo, let me get a good look atcha. I ain't seen you since you were knee high to a grasshopper! Ach, listen to me. I ain't lived in Oklahoma in 30 years and suddenly it's like I never left."

Bella grinned at her aunt and let her eyes take in the woman before her. A stocky woman, she was a few inches shorter than Bella, but her strong, forceful personality made her seem a foot taller. In her late forties, her dark brown hair - a Swan family trait - was now turning a pretty salt n pepper gray with streaks of pure white at the temples. She had a warm, open face - with skin that was tanned and worn by the sun - despite half a lifetime spent under the clouds of the Northern Pacific. She was dressed simply in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Bella just knew that the two of them would get along just fine.

"Bella, my girl, I've been hopin' for this day for a long time. C'mon, let's go find your bags."

An hour later they had located Bella's luggage and were loaded up into a 1964 Chevy pickup and on their way to Charlie's home, _and now my home_, in the small town of Forks, WA.

"This is a really neat truck," Bella said, rubbing her hands along the smooth leather seat. Despite the truck's rough exterior - peeling red paint and rusted bumpers - the interior was in near mint condition.

"Well, anytime you want to use it - go ahead."

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure. I figure you can drive it to school and any running around you want to do - hanging with your new friends. Bella snorted. I don't need it that often; that's the beauty of living where you work - really short commute. Just let me know when you want it on the weekends so I can plan out my errands."

They drifted into a comfortable silence for the rest of the trip into Forks. Bella peered around at her new hometown with mild curiosity.

"Wow - it's very…green," she commented.

"That it is," her aunt replied with a wry grin. She ruffled Bella's hair.

"You're not in Pawhuska anymore, kiddo."

Bella shuddered inwardly, briefly remembering the horrors and pain she hoped to leave behind in the tiny Oklahoma town.

_Thank God._

………………………………..........................................................................................................

"So where's your store?" Bella asked. She knew her aunt owned a bookstore in town. A full service bookseller, it sold all the popular bestsellers but specialized in rare and out of print items. It also did a thriving trade in buying and selling used books.

"It's downtown."

Bella shot her aunt her best deadpan expression. "Forks has a downtown?"

"Smart ass. Yes, Forks has a downtown. Granted, it's like 2 blocks, but there are a number of antique stores and specialty shops - a couple of cafes and the like. There's a strong arts scene here too - a number of local artists went in together to buy gallery space and they live in studio apartments above them."

Very shortly they were in the downtown district and Bella looked at the people strolling up and down the main street. Teenagers were sitting at tables outside a coffeehouse and a fiber artist was selling handwoven scarves and jackets on a table outside her store. For the first time in a long time, Bella felt hope well up in her. Here was a place where she could forget her past. Here she could make a new beginning.

She grinned at her aunt. "Wow. This is so…not what I expected."

"I know, right? Well, we don't have much here in Forks, but one thing we do have is a kick-ass Marketing and Tourism Development department on our City Council. Over the years they've been making headway and promoting Forks as a get away destination for Seattlites who want to escape the tourists. People come down here for the weekend to shop, look at art - and we've got some amazing unspoiled natural areas around here for the outdoor enthusiasts - well, enough with me yammering on - We're here!"

Sure enough, they had pulled in front of an old red brick, 2 story building with a long glass window on the ground level, and several tall - what looked to be floor to ceiling - windows on the upper level. The store and the apartment above it were actually part of a long row of similar stores and apartments the length of the block. It had the "Main Street" feeling of buildings in the 40's and 50's. The painted block letters on the store's window proclaimed it to be "Swan's Books: Charlie Swan, Proprietor."

Bella cocked an eyebrow. "Nice name."

"Shut up. It's the best I could think of and it beats 'Charlie's Books n Shit.'"

Bella's response was forgotten as they entered the store. She breathed deeply the wonderfully musty smell of old books and lemony furniture polish. There were rows upon rows of tall wooden bookshelves and wonderfully cozy reading nooks all around with comfy overstuffed chairs. In the center of the surprisingly large store were several long tables with chairs around them, and along one back corner wall a handful of PCs were stationed along with printers and a copier.

Bella noticed her aunt looking at the store with pride.

"The nearest town of any decent size is Port Angeles - about an hour away - so if you need a library or to make a copy, you've got to make a trip - so I set this place up to be a kind of bookstore/library/copy place. It's not so necessary now - nowadays most people have a home computer and printer. But still, the kids like to hang here after school. They get a mocha up the street at Java Jimmy's and then head here to read and do homework. Of course, they're not so great as paying customers, but I've got plenty of space and as long as they don't bother the actual customers I don't mind."

Bella ran her fingers along the spines of the books in the Classic Romantic Literature section - _hello my old friends_ - and sighed.

"I could live here."

Charlie chuckled. "Well, you're close enough, kiddo. Actually, there's a job for you here if you want it. My last shop assistant left last week for college and I've been trying to man the register and manage the back office at the same time. I need someone to manage the front for a few hours a day and maybe on the weekends while I maintain the inventory and process the online and phone orders.

I can't pay much - maybe 8 bucks an hour - but you can read and do homework in between customers and it would give you some spending money. Whadya say?"

Bella had long ago resigned herself to getting a parttime job flipping burgers during her remaining high school years. Her father's pension and the life insurance policies from both her parents meant that she would have plenty of money for college and maybe a little extra for afterwards, but she wanted to hold off for as long as possible before drawing down those funds in order to make it last as long as possible. Compared with the greasy - would you like fries with that - alternative, there was really only one response.

"When do I start?"

………………………………...................................................................................................

Later that evening, Bella sat brushing her hair and thinking on her day. After dropping off her things and getting a brief tour of the loft style apartment above the bookstore, they'd had dinner up the street at Forks in the Road, an eclectic café serving popular dishes from all over the globe as well as standard diner fare. The staff and other patrons had all greeted Charlie by name - and Bella also - which only confirmed in Bella's mind that she was already the talk of the town.

"My kitchen consists of a hot plate, microwave, and mini fridge so… I eat out a lot," her aunt had said. "Plus there's the fact that me + cooking = not good."

"Just like Dad. I used to think that if I didn't cook and actually put food in front of him every night that he wouldn't eat at all. Of course that was if he even came home to eat at all - he always worked such late nights."

Charlie shifted in her chair and took a sip of her Sam Adams. "Well, I'm sure he was very busy."

Bella snorted. "Please. He was the sheriff of Osaga County - population 3600 - though now I guess it's 3598. How much crime could there have been?"

"There was enough," her aunt replied darkly, with a far away look in her steel blue eyes. She seemed to shake herself out of whatever state she'd been in. "Besides, I know he was called in to assist the Tulsa police from time to time."

"Yeah…"

An awkward silence hung at the table.

"Look, Bella. I'm not going to tell you what to feel or not feel - you're entitled to everything you're feeling. I just want to tell you that no matter what else his faults or short comings may have been, that he loved you very much. You were his little girl, the apple of his eye, his princess. It's just that when your mom was - well, when she died, a part of him died too. He didn't know how to be there for you and raise you without her. So he threw himself into his work and left you to the wolves," she said with a distasteful grimace.

Bella smiled at that. Charlie was speaking of Bella's other aunts, on both sides of the family, who, along with Bella's grandparents, practically raised Bella since she was little.

"They weren't that bad," Bella said.

"Oh please - that gaggle of gossiping, meddling, busybodies with barely a brain among them. If it had been up to me, I'd a yanked you outta there years ago. But I couldn't do that to Charlie."

"By the way, how weird is it that you and Dad have the same name?" Bella said.

"We don't have the same name. We have the same nickname," Charlie replied with a smirk.

"And that's not confusing at all."

"Dad - your grandfather - Charles Swan, Sr., or Charlie to all his friends, desperately wanted a son to carry on the name. Unfortunately, I came along and they didn't think they could have any more kids. So Dad named me - and if you tell anyone this I will kill you dead - Charlene, and nicknamed me Charlie so he could have his little Charlie Swan Jr. Then, several years later the stork surprised my parents with your father which left them with quite the dilemma. He really wanted to name your father Charles Swan, Jr. - nickname Charlie - but I was already answering to Charlie. Dad named your father after him anyway and decreed that I was to begin going by Charlene, to which I replied 'Hell no' earning me my first real whuppin'. Anyway, Dad's decree held firm resulting in 10 years of public school hell and is the reason why I fled Pawhuska as fast as my Impala would take me. I've been answering to Charlie ever since."

"My family is so weird."

"Yeah - where have you been?"

Bella smiled as she brushed her hair in front of her bathroom mirror. She hadn't realized it at the time, but her aunt had deftly, and sneakily, changed the subject away from her mother's death. It had seemed that when Charlie spoke of Bella's mom that she had been about to say something else, that once again, there was a hidden undercurrent beneath the spoken words, some subtext that was unknown to Bella.

Bella signed and put down the hairbrush. _Story of my life. _Bella had become quite adept at picking up on the unspoken tones of the conversations around her. After all, it had only been happening for her entire life; this feeling that everyone around her is speaking a secret language and she's the only one without a decoder ring. Walking in on conversations and just _knowing_ that moments before they'd been talking about her. The sidelong glances and pitying murmurs, "The poor dear, to suffer such a tragedy."

Yes, her mother's death when Bella was just four was tragic, but one would think that the good people of Pawhuska had never heard of cancer before, the way they carried on. And it followed Bella throughout her entire life. School was very difficult for Bella as she always had the feeling that the other students, even those she'd never met, knew more about Bella's life than she did. The teachers and counselors who treated her like glass; the students who stared at her with morbid fascination to see if today was the day she'd "snap."

_That's in the past,_ she told herself firmly. One positive result of her father's death, killed in the line of duty while assisting the TPD, was that she now had the opportunity to start fresh in a new town where the only thing that anyone knew of her was that she was Charlie Swan's niece. Charlie had not told anyone of her brother's death, preferring to grieve in private, so Bella didn't have to reveal it to anyone, and in fact planned not to. All that anyone needed to know was that she was here in preparation to attend college at UW.

She crawled into bed, hoping to get a decent amount of sleep for her first day at Forks High the next day. She smiled into the darkness of her room; she still grieved for her parents, but could now see her future before her, bright and brimming with possibilities.

For the moment…

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A/N: So we've got a bit of a mystery on our hands.

Now that you're hopefully intrigued by what you've read so far, I want to give you a little more background on the story. Basically, this is an alternate universe version of Twilight. I'm taking the same basic characters, yet I've changed some major things about their pasts, which in turn affect who they are and how they behave in the present. As a result, they may appear to be a little OOC, but I hope that they are still recognizable. They're still the same at heart; they've just had different experiences than in the book. I've used the characters and plot of Twilight as a basis of inspiration for a different story - it's still a love story, and it should be reminiscent of Twilight - but it will have a different plot, so don't expect to see the same events/conversations that were in the book.

Coming up next Chapter: Bella's first day at school and a meeting with a certain bronze-haired boy.

Please let me know what you think - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thank you for reading!


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